


Invitation

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [91]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “I fucking told you,” Bryce says, while Jared waits for his transfer in San Francisco. He’s already been on one plane, has two more to go, back in Denver before he hits Edmonton, but he would fly seven fucking flights to get to Edmonton without batting an eye.“You didn’t make it happen with like, your faith in me,” Jared says, grinning at his carry on bag. “Thanks, though.”





	Invitation

Bryce may not have had the ability to actually promise that Jared would be back with the Oilers soon, but he’s not wrong either.

Jared gets to Bakersfield, checks in to a hotel room that looks the same as all the other ones he’s stayed in since he was sent down, but he doesn’t have time to take in the city or even unpack properly before he gets called right back up to the Oilers. Jared doesn’t know how long Brouwer will be out — concussions are tricky to gauge, timeline wise — but he does know that when he does get back, Jared will be past the point they can slide his contract, so if he’s playing better than the worst guy, he’s not going to be the one who gets sent down. They would have called another right-winger up if they weren’t planning on Jared sticking around.

“I fucking told you,” Bryce says, while Jared waits for his transfer in San Francisco. He’s already been on one plane, has two more to go, back in Denver before he hits Edmonton, but he would fly seven fucking flights to get to Edmonton without batting an eye.

“You didn’t make it happen with like, your faith in me,” Jared says, grinning at his carry on bag. “Thanks, though.”

When Jared arrives, exhausted but content, Julius is waiting for him in the lobby, hands him a card to the room. Jared left it on his bedside table when he left, so either Julius held onto it, or he went to reception to ask for another when he found out Jared was coming back. He isn’t huggy like he was when Jared was leaving, but Jared has a feeling that was a special occasion hug. Instead he gets a nod and a ‘welcome back’, almost bored sounding, but like, Jared knows he’s pleased. You don’t hug the shit out of someone when they leave if you don’t like them at least a _little_ , and you don’t wait for them in the lobby either.

“Good to be back,” Jared says, and follows Julius up, gets unpacking straight away, before anyone can take it back.

*

Jared’s first practice, he gets claps on the back, warm ‘welcome back J Math’s, and it feels good, dumb nickname aside, feels like he’s come back his team. And it is his team, it has been, he just — it’s clicked now. For the first time, it feels truly right, being there. They try him out on Julius’ wing in practice, rather than moving Andersson up, and that clicks too. They’ve got chemistry, though Jared suspects anyone matched with Julius is going to play better than they would otherwise. He’s the kind of player who makes every player around him better. Going into the game, Jared’s still going to be on Julius’ wing, and he’s pretty excited about it, even though he knows the kind of guys they’re going to be matched up against.

They’re not exactly going to be the checking line anymore. It already kind of wasn’t, or was like, just a very tough scoring line, but with Jared on Julius’ wing, no one’s going to take them seriously as muscle. They’re probably going to die. Well, maybe not: thank fuck they’ve got Grant, who isn’t like, Brouwer tough, but isn’t the kind of player who’ll be pushed around, let them be pushed around.

It’s downright easy to get assists when you’re feeding a player as skilled as Julius, especially when he’s still new enough to the league teams haven’t figured out strategies to counter him yet. Jared can straight up try to clear the puck and it’ll end up on Julius’ stick, turn into an odd man rush the other way. He’s slippery, dangles around guys like it’s easy, and Jared always tries to know where he is on the ice, because wherever he is, there’s a scoring chance. Jared notches an assist in his first game back, another in his second, and it feels great, even though he hasn’t gotten a goal yet. Feels like he’s doing the right things, though it’s straight up hard to do the wrong ones when you’ve got Julius Halla as a liney.

“It’ll come,” Julius says easily about the goal, and on the one hand, it’s irritating, because obviously he can say that easily, he already has plenty, but then, kind of comforting too, because if he’s got Julius on the ice with him, well. It’ll come.

*

Edmonton might be temporary, Jared might still be sent down, but he’s pretty sure he’s safe, safe enough that it’s worth it to start looking for apartments. Julius comes along with him, ostensibly to help him pick, but he ends up snatching up the first place they see for himself. Jared would be annoyed if he hadn’t felt ambivalent about the place. The light felt all wrong.

“You have never said anything gayer in your entire life,” Bryce says.

“It did!” Jared says. “And I don’t know, ‘can I suck your dick?’ is probably gayer.”

Bryce snorts. “Maybe,” he says. “But really, the light?”

“I dunno, it was weird light,” Jared says. “Cut me some slack, I’ve never looked anywhere for myself before. It was like, my parents’ house, and hotel rooms, and then your place.”

He can practically hear Bryce opening his mouth.

“Yes, I know it’s our place, I just mean I didn’t pick it,” Jared says.

“Do you—” Bryce starts.

“No, I don’t want to look for somewhere else, I like our place, quit it,” Jared says.

“I wasn’t gonna say that,” Bryce mumbles, but like he just got caught. 

“Uh huh,” Jared says.

“I could look with you,” Bryce says. “We’ve got a day off coming up and—”

“You know you can’t,” Jared says.

Bryce sighs.

“You know you can’t, Bryce,” Jared says.

“Yeah,” Bryce says. “Send me the listings or something? Or like, pictures?”

“I can do that,” Jared says. “But I mean it, if I don’t like the light, it’s not happening.”

“Okay,” Bryce says. “You’re such a diva.”

“You are the last person in the world who is allowed to call anyone else a diva,” Jared says. “For the record.”

“You’re turning down places because of the light!” Bryce says.

“I can list like ten more diva-y things you’ve done, if you want,” Jared says. “Got ‘em lined up in my head already.”

“Fuck off,” Bryce says. “I gotta head out for a stupid media thing. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Jared says, and then hangs up to see Julius looking at him weirdly. He was wearing headphones when Jared called Bryce — he’s practically inseparable from them, and the music filters out loud enough Jared kind of worries about his hearing, especially since on any given day he could be listening to either Top 40 or Finnish death metal — but he must have taken them off at some point when Jared wasn’t paying attention.

“Who was that?” Julius asks. It’s uncharacteristically curious of him, and that’s maybe why he catches Jared off guard, why Jared didn’t even bother to leave the room for the conversation, which, in hindsight, was probably a little incriminating, as conversations go. There’s a way you talk to someone you’re with that’s different. Or, at least, Jared doesn’t talk to Bryce like he talks to anyone else. Plus the ‘love you’s. Like maybe some guys could say ‘I was talking to a friend’ and pull it off, but Jared isn’t exactly the kind of guy who throws the word love around, and he feels like Julius might know that by now.

“Uh,” Jared says. “My boyfriend.”

Julius blinks at him.

“Fiancé,” Jared says.

Julius blinks again.

“Why is your face like that,” Jared says. He keeps _telling it things_. Why do people keep having faces that are impossible not to tell things? Or, Jared guesses, why is it the second someone doesn’t say anything, he finds himself filling in the silence with freaking rambling. It’s terrible. He would not be good at handling interrogation. One minute of silence and he’d be spilling everything.

Julius blinks multiple times. 

“Can you please say something before I panic and tell you more things,” Jared begs.

“You’re—” Julius says, then, finally, sounding mystified, “Fiancé?”

“Yeah,” Jared says, then, realising that might not be a word in his English — French? — vocabulary, “I’m getting married. To a guy, if you didn’t get that. ‘Cause I’m gay.”

Julius is very quiet. Julius is almost always very quiet, but Jared really hates it right now.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Jared says.

Julius shrugs. “Not in Edmonton?” he asks finally. Jared guesses that’s kind of obvious, considering neither of them leaves the room most nights. 

“No, he’s back in Calgary,” Jared says.

“Sucks,” Julius says. “My girlfriend is in Finland.”

“Wait, you have a girlfriend?” Jared says. “You never mentioned having a girlfriend.”

“You are _getting married_ ,” Julius shoots back, which. Touché. Different circumstances, but touché. “Am I invited?” 

“Invited?” Jared asks.

“For the wedding,” Julius says, stone-faced, and Jared suspects he’s trolling him, but he can’t actually be sure. It’s annoying.

“Maybe,” Jared says. “Help me score a goal and I’ll consider it.”

“I can do that,” Julius says with a nod.

*

The pass Julius feeds him that night is so pretty Jared wants to cry, and he barely has to do a thing to bury it in the back of the net, Julius crashing into him, heavy with padding, Rogers coming in last, Jared’s puck safely in his hand. 

“Wedding,” Julius says on the bench after, and Jared tries to roll his eyes, but apparently it’s impossible to multi-task doing that and grinning so wide it actively hurts his face.

*

“So apparently Julius is coming to our wedding,” Jared says. Julius’ headphones are back on his head — death metal tonight, it sounds like — eyes shut, and Jared can’t tell if he’s asleep or not. Who the hell can fall asleep to death metal? 

Jared probably didn’t need to head to the bathroom for this call, but he did anyway. He’s kind of paranoid he let Bryce’s name slip last time, and even if Julius didn’t hear it, and even if there’s no way he’d assume the Bryce Jared was talking to was Bryce Marcus, it’s still better safe than sorry.

Bryce doesn’t say anything, but Jared can practically hear him blinking.

“He knows I’m engaged,” Jared says. “He heard me talking to you this afternoon and I kind of had to tell him? I mean, he doesn’t know _who_ I’m engaged to, but. He asked if he could come to the wedding and I maybe told him he could if he helped me score a goal.”

“Jared,” Bryce says.

“I’m sorry!” Jared says. “It was a really beautiful pass.”

“It was a nice pass,” Bryce says, kind of grudgingly, then, not grudgingly at all, “It was a gorgeous goal, J.”

It wasn’t pretty at all, but Jared is not arguing because it was a goal, and it was his first goal, and honestly, that makes it fucking gorgeous.

“Are we making a wedding guest list?” Bryce asks.

“I mean, my parents and Erin. Elaine, obviously,” Jared says. “Julius, now. We probably need to invite Chaz and Ashley.”

“Chaz would be mad if we didn’t,” Bryce says.

“Raf and Grace,” Jared says. “I dunno, fuck, are we starting to plan? Now I’m getting all freaked out.”

“We don’t have to plan yet,” Bryce says. He sounds kind of freaked out too.

“Okay good,” Jared says. “Because like, fuck, my grandma would be upset if we didn’t invite her, and your grandparents would probably be too, and —”

“We don’t have to plan yet!” Bryce repeats. “Let’s just — fuck. I dunno. Was Halla okay about it? Like, you being gay?”

“Totally unfazed,” Jared says. “Though like, he’s not fazed by anything.”

“Except spiders,” Bryce says.

“It was huge, Bryce, okay,” Jared says. “It was gigantic, and it was coming right for us. He had good reason to be scared.”

Bryce snorts. “You trust him?” he asks, serious now.

“Yeah,” Jared says. 

“Okay,” Bryce says, something doubtful in his voice Jared isn’t sure if he’s imagining. “Okay.”

*

Jared does trust Julius, but, in the midst of furniture shopping for Julius’ new, terribly lit apartment — Jared has no idea how Julius convinced him to come along, because shopping sucks — he pulls him aside in a mock kitchen.

Julius examines it thoughtfully, like he thinks Jared is suggesting it, then dismisses it with a disinterested shrug.

“No, I — uh,” Jared says. “You know I’m not out, right? Like, to the team.”

“Out?” Julius asks, and yeah, Jared guesses that wouldn’t be one of the first English words he learned either.

“The team doesn’t know I’m gay,” Jared says. “Or engaged. So if you could not like, say anything—”

“Secret, sure,” Julius says, giving him a thumbs up before going back to examining the kitchen, and Jared exhales.

If Jared didn’t know how Julius convinced him to go shopping with him, he _definitely_ doesn’t know how he convinces him to help him put it together in his new apartment on their next off day. This is not Jared’s domain, like, at all. It does appear to be Julius’, though — _everything_ seems to be Julius’ domain — so Jared ends up mostly assisting after he screws up a few times and Julius just starts demanding parts, less in English and more in sharp hand gestures, and making Jared hold things still so he can screw them together, which Jared is a little better at. 

By the end of the day he’s fucking wiped, and ends up crashing on Julius’ couch after they ignore the newly assembled dining room table to eat delivery in front of Julius’ giant new TV. Julius goes back to the room with him the next morning, but it’s just to pack up the stuff he hasn’t brought over already, and it’s weird, having the room to himself. Thankfully the Oilers aren’t like, sticking him with someone else until he finds a place of his own, but he wants to do it sooner rather than later now.

He uses the newfound freedom to schedule a Skype sex session in, so there are pluses, but like, he could do that in his own apartment too. Also, you know, have actual sex when their schedules lined up. Three hours is not too far to travel for sex. Jared would have said differently before, but he’s changed his mind. It’s almost lucky, how exhausting it is to keep up with the NHL schedule, because otherwise he’s pretty sure he’d be downright restless with how much he misses touching Bryce. 

And it’s not the sex, or like, not just sex. He misses sleeping beside him, and their bodies touching in like, seventeen places when they watch something dumb on the couch, and the way Bryce always reaches out and touches Jared when he’s just moving past him, hand on the back of his neck when he’s stumbling to the kitchen for coffee, distracted kiss to the corner of his mouth when he walks in the door mid-call with Elaine. 

Also the sex, though. Definitely the sex.

“I’ve got a day off on Thursday, and you’re not playing that night,” Bryce says, when Jared maybe spills some of that. He’s kind of embarrassed about it, but he knows Bryce isn’t judging. He’s actually pretty damn sure Bryce is beaming on the inside, hearing it, that he should say this stuff more, but it’s hard. “I can come up.”

Jared makes vague protests because he knows Bryce is going to be spending almost as much time driving as he is actually seeing Jared, considering, but like, he doesn’t protest that hard. They’re pretty token protests, and if he didn’t know Bryce was going to dismiss them, he wouldn’t make them at all. He misses him. 

“I just got us a hotel room,” Bryce says. “Since it’s probably not a good idea to go to yours.”

“Good point,” Jared says, then, “You were pretty confident I wasn’t busy that night, eh?”

“I’m worth clearing your schedule for,” Bryce says, all teeth in his voice, and it’s not like Jared can disagree. Well, he could, and honestly should, just to keep Bryce from getting a big head, but. He doesn’t.


End file.
